Summary
I love PC building, and it’s a hobby I’ve explored deeply over the past decade or so. Aside from building five PCs for myself to date, I’ve helped assemble countless others for friends and family members. However, one thing I’ve learned over the years is that just getting a PC isn’t the whole picture. To actually set it up for any task, and in this context, gaming, you need to tweak some settings to ensure you’re squeezing every bit of horsepower from your rig. Confirm Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling is on Your GPU can run its own scheduling — if Windows lets it Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) is a feature that helps reduce CPU usage by offloading high-priority tasks to the GPU. Without HAGS, Windows’ graphics scheduler determines which tasks the GPU should handle. This helps reduce the CPU workload and thereby gives you a performance boost. The key idea is that HAGS eliminates scheduling delays, reducing input latency and smoothing out the 1% lows, giving you an edge in competitive games or CPU-bound titles. Not to mention that features like Nvidia’s frame generation also require enabling HAGS. To verify if HAGS is on:
- Open Settings.
- Go to System → Display → Graphics.
- Select Change the default graphics settings, and turn HAGS on. You’ll need to restart your PC for the change to take effect. Unlock Resizable BAR in your BIOS Your CPU accesses VRAM in small chunks, creating a bandwidth bottleneck By default, your CPU accesses VRAM in 256 MB windows at a time. For modern workloads, this is a huge bandwidth bottleneck, since AAA titles these days easily occupy 8–12GB of VRAM. Turning on Resizable BAR allows your CPU to access more of that memory at once, or even the entire VRAM. This helps load textures, geometry, shaders, meshes, and assets faster. Depending on what game you’re playing, the performance difference can become significant, usually 2–5% in those VRAM-dependent titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, etc. To enable Resizable BAR, follow these steps:
- Enter BIOS via F2/Delete.
- Go to the PCI/PCIe settings menu.
- Enable 4G Decoding (essential to turn on Resizable BAR).
- Resizable BAR will then appear. Turn it on. In some cases, you may need to disable CSM and Legacy Boot for Resizable BAR to turn on. Adjust your power plan settings There are several in-depth power plan settings killing your frame times It’s common sense to set your system to high performance to get the most out of it, but Windows has made it so that some settings are hidden deep inside the power plan. Notable examples include setting the minimum and maximum states for your CPU to keep it on high clock speeds at all times. Windows also hides CPU boost settings deep inside the Registry Editor that, when changed, unlock more power options for your CPU in the power plan menu. Another setting in the power plan is PCI Express Link State Power Management, which reduces power to your GPU or SSD when inactive. However, the wake-up delay can be noticeable, leading to stuttering and hardware throttling, so I recommend turning this feature off. To turn it off:
- Press Win + R.
Type powercfg.cpl and press Enter. - Change plan settings for the plan you’re on.
- Change advanced power settings.
- Expand PCI Express.
- Click PCI Express Link State Power Management
- Turn it off. The performance gains that PCI Express Link State Power Management saves in the first place are minimal and far from noticeable for gaming PCs that draw more than 1000W of electricity, so the trade-off doesn’t really matter here. Disable Energy Efficient Ethernet for consistent ping A power-saving feature that trades network stability for milliwatts Windows enables several power-saving network settings by default that offer little benefit while saving only a few microwatts. One notable example is EEE, or Energy Efficient Ethernet, a network setting based on the 802.3az standard that puts your Ethernet adapter into a low-power state when it detects low traffic and wakes on demand. The wake-up process is where performance can suffer, since it introduces jitter and latency spikes, throwing off your in-game ping in multiplayer titles. In competitive titles like Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant, the smallest increase in latency can cost you a match and your rankings. On desktops, the power saved by EEE is negligible, and even on laptops it rarely adds up when you’re using an Ethernet connection, since this power-saving feature is not intended for wireless connections. Here’s how to disable EEE:
- Open Device Manager.
- Expand your Network adapters.
- Select your Ethernet adapter and open its Properties.
- Go to the Advanced tab, find Energy Efficient Ethernet, open it, and select Disable. I’ve noticed improved pings and fewer latency spikes in several online games I tested after disabling EEE, and I was able to grind all the way up to a Diamond 1 rank in Valorant and finally stopped blaming my ISP. Unlock your RAM’s full speed That advertised speed on the box isn’t what you’re running it at Most people don’t know this, but the advertised speeds for your RAM aren’t what your PC setting in your BIOS to unlock the full speeds. I’m referring to EXPO/XMP, depending on your CPU brand. EXPO and XMP unlock the overclocked profiles for your RAM, and no, this isn’t overclocking in the conventional sense; your manufacturer has already validated this speed profile as stable. The JEDEC speed for your memory might be 4800 MT/s for DDR5 kits, while they’re capable of 6000 MT/s or more. To reach that higher speed, follow these steps:
- Go to the BIOS.
- Go to Memory settings.
- Find EXPO/XMP or a similarly named memory profile option and enable it. If EXPO/XMP offers several profile options, select the profile that matches the advertised speeds on your RAM package, as other profiles may use different timings and voltages that can be unstable and potentially lead to system crashes. The location of the settings may differ across most motherboards, but the rundown will look the same, while the naming conventions will differ. Five minutes of setup that will help your PC perform at its intended speeds I recommend starting with BIOS-level changes by adjusting the EXPO/XMP profiles and Resizable BAR before moving on to Windows for the remaining software tweaks. Another feature I recommend taking advantage of is background services and bloat to optimize Windows for gaming. After enabling it, I noticed a performance increase of up to 13% in select titles. Taken together, these settings will take no more than five minutes of your time, but the difference can result in a performance boost in the double-digit range, and your PC will feel snappier and faster across other workloads beyond just gaming.